The Laundry Room!

I've got LOTS to post about, when I just uploaded my camera's memory disk I had 300 pictures, "Oy Vey!!".  But, before I start blogging about what we've all been up to the last 2 weeks (which is lots), I wanted to brag about the project we just finished.

 

My mom is in town and we have had lots of fun, but I have also made her work pretty darn hard.  (Sorry, and thanks momma!)  The BIG project I wanted to tackle while she was here was drywalling the laundry room.  I hated the way it looked before, and there was always so much dust/lint/debris that would catch on the wood and between the beams.  I also wanted to replace the dryer vent and remove/seal up an old vent that was letting air in directly from outside all winter (yeah...have I mentioned we live in Minnesota, so that's a pretty big problem!). 

 

So last Tuesday, we got to work!

 

Here is a before shot.  I thought that cleaning it would be cheating (plus I was too lazy to try and make it look nice for the photo), so it's a real shot of what my laundry room looks like any given day.  It's OK to judge my clutter :)

 I emptied the laundry room, my mom unscrewed the shelves, and I ran to Home Depot to pick up my online order.  Mom and I carried in all the drywall (that stuff is HEAVY!  It's a good thing we are buff!) and got to work. 

 Measure, cut, place, screw, REPEAT.

Once the walls were up we mud and taped.

 Then comes the sanding, which is just awful, EVERYTHING gets covered in white dust.  (and not the recreational kind, just the choke you, seap through all your clothes, stick to your sweat kind)

 We waited for Matt to be home on Saturday to drywall the ceiling.  Mom and I may be buff, but not not quite buff enough to wanna hold a drywall panel up above our head while standing on a stool, keeping it firmly in position while the other one screws.  With the 3 of us, it was still a hard job, but totally manageable.  We put it up, then mom took the girls up for lunch and Matt and I taped and applied the mud.

 This morning Mom and Matt sanded the ceiling for me!  I didn't help at all.  I did watch kids, but that was about it.  I wasn't feeling great so I was really grateful for the reprieve!

 Then we started painting!

 

I did the ceiling, but got no pics of me doing it.  The highlight of the day came when I got a huge drop of paint right dead center in the middle of my eye while painting the ceiling.  I really, really  wish I would have made someone take a picture.  It was no where else on my face, but my entire eye was coated with white paint, it looked like something out of a Sci Fi flick.  It looked kind like this.

 

Matt whisked me off of the washing machine where I was standing and flushed my eye out in the tub (my hero!).  I think that my contacts probably helped protect my eye, though my entire lid was full.  Worth the price of a pair of contacts I suppose!

 Once the room was painted  and dry, we put the covers on all of the electrical outlets, etc, moved the appliances in place, put down the rug (eventually we may lay flooring, but we are poor students, so a rug is good enough for us!), and got ready to move stuff back in!

 Hooray!  The dream team! (can you tell we had a short photographer...)

 And here it is!  The before and after!!